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Rick Battarbee elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Contributions to the study of recent environmental change

Professor Rick Battarbee FRS, had been elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

The citation of the Association’s Council describes Rick’s, ‘outstanding leadership, service, and contributions to the fields of paleolimnology and recent environmental change’.

The award adds to the wide national and international recognition of his work since establishing the UCL Geography Environmental Change Research Centre (ECRC) in the 1980s. This has focused on diatom analysis and the use of lake sediments to understand the impact of nutrient pollution, acid deposition and climate change on lake ecosystems. The Centre’s work provided definitive evidence relating the acidification of surface waters in the United Kingdom to ‘acid rain’.

Rick is a Foreign Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, recipient of the Ruth Patrick Award from the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, an Einstein Professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and holds the Victoria Medal of the Royal Geographical Society and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Paleolimnology Association.

He has been awarded honorary doctorates by the University of Ulster and Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada, and currently represents the Royal Society on the Council of the Freshwater Biological Association, as well as being Editor-in-Chief of the Society’s Journal, Biology Letters.

The AAAS Fellowship will be presented in Washington DC on February 16th 2019.